As Failures Mount and Resistance Increases, Trump And Hard Right Will Rip GOP Apart

There are signs that Republicans in Congress are finally beginning to stand up to Trump, intimating there are at least some red lines that he can not cross. Lindsay Graham said that it might be the end of the Trump presidency if Trump fires Mueller. Ben Sasse made similar remarks. The Republicans have also said that the Senate would not go into recess so that Trump could not fire Sessions and replace him with a recess appointment. And Chuck Grassley declared there was no room on the current Judiciary Committee calendar to even begin to address the nomination of a new Attorney General should Trump fire Sessions, meaning the position would remain open for a significant period of time.

Similarly, the House and the Senate have overwhelmingly approved new sanctions against Russia, China, and Iran. The votes passed with veto-proof margins meaning that Trump would clearly be overridden should he decide veto the bill. Anthony “Scamarucci” has said that Trump may in fact veto the bill because he wants a “tougher deal”, proving that “Scamarucci” can tell a joke as well as spout expletives.

Obviously, there have been many people in government who have been doing their best to protect and warn the country about the ignorance and abuses of Trump since his inauguration. Now it appears the military is basically ignoring Trump’s tweet about transgender service members, claiming that the Secretary of Defense is still waiting for specific instructions from the White House.

But as Republicans begin to rein in Trump there will be an equivalent backlash as Trump and hard right conservatives begin to rip the Republican party apart as his popularity continues to sink into the abyss and the GOP legislative agenda collapses. Trump will lash out and look for scapegoats his failures and the obvious place is his own party since it has total legislative control. And conservatives will join Trump in those attacks as we are already seeing in reaction to the Senate’s healthcare failure.

Already, he has threatened and blamed the Freedom Caucus after the initial failure of the AHCA in the House. He has encouraged attack ads against Dean Heller in Nevada and overtly threatened him in public by asking if he wants to remain a Senator. Lisa Murkowski was just threatened with destruction of Alaskan jobs because of her healthcare vote by the Secretary of the Interior, presumably with Trump’s approval. Trump has also jokingly threatened McCain, Capito, and others over the failure of healthcare so far. Both Murkowski and Susan Collins have been abused by fellow GOP Congressmen, and they are men, over their healthcare votes.

For GOP Senators, they have taken this abuse while they were still trying to pass a healthcare bill. Imagine how bad it will be now that the effort has finally failed. Of course, the initial target of conservative ire will be the three defectors, Collins, Murkowski, and McCain. But that fire is already turning on the GOP leadership and Trump will be sure to add to it. Paul Ryan is already under pressure from conservative Republicans and Steve Bannon has been trying to take his scalp ever since he became Speaker. Mitch McConnell now finds himself in the same precarious position as Ryan, as both have shown an inability to manage their caucus with the same unanimity that was much easier when they both knew that Obama was President and their votes were meaningless. Already one GOP Representative has called for McConnell to step down. Both Ryan and McConnell will face Trump’s fury for the failure of Obamacare repeal and replace and conservatives will join in dumping on both of them.

But there are other pressures building as well. Even Trump’s abuse of Jeff Sessions, which is driven by his fear of the Russian investigation, has created a problem with the GOP conservative base who largely likes the radical agenda that Sessions has for the DOJ. For those vulnerable members of Congress who voted for the AHCA or the various Senate bills there may be a sense of relief that nothing passed but they will still be held accountable for their votes and will be attacked from both the left and the right.

The failure of healthcare will simply exacerbate the fissures that already exist with the Republican party and, with total control of the entire legislative process, there aren’t any Democrats to blame, no matter how hard Trump and other may try, which only leaves the GOP to attack themselves. And the upcoming battles over the budget and the debt ceiling will only increase the likelihood of more of the internecine warfare within the party.